Attorney files motions to suppress jailhouse testimony and information against David Chalue

In this file photo from Sept. 12, 2011, David Chalue is arraigned in Berkshire District Court on charges of murder and kidnapping of three Pittsfield men.

Posted
Friday, April 4, 2014 1:08 pm

By Andrew Amelinckx, Berkshire Eagle Staff

PITTSFIELD -- The lawyer for David Chalue, who is accused of the murders of three city men, is seeking to keep out information from three jailhouse informants scheduled to testify for the prosecution.

Attorney Donald W. Frank recently filed a number of motions in preparation for the triple murder case scheduled to begin April 22.

Chalue, 47, of North Adams, is alleged to have helped Adam Lee Hall and Caius Veiovis kidnap, torture and kill three men in August 2011.

Just weeks before he was to testify against Hall, David Glasser disappeared, along with his roommate, Edward Frampton, and their friend Robert Chadwell. Their dismembered remains were discovered in Becket nearly two weeks later buried in a trench.

Chalue has denied three counts each of murder, kidnapping and witness intimidation.

A jury convicted Hall in February of murdering Glasser to keep him from testifying in an upcoming case and the other two men to prevent there being any witnesses.

He is serving three consecutive life sentences without parole plus up to 42 years.

Three informants who say Chalue made incriminating statements to them while they were in jail together were at the center of many of Frank's motions.

He asked the court to keep out several statements by Jason Lemieux, who alleged Chalue was a member of the prison gang the Aryan Brotherhood, had killed three or four people in jail and had never been caught, had done time for bank robbery and knew how to "make people disappear."

Frank called the statements "irrelevant and unduly prejudicial."

The attorney requested information on two other informants, Jethro Kempton and Jeffrey Cashman. Kempton alleged Chalue confessed to him about the killings.

Frank is also seeking information about a lie detector test given to Cashman, that was referenced in a letter the prisoner sent to Berkshire District Attorney David F. Capeless in November.

The attorney said there was no other reference to the polygraph test in other discovery material he had received.

In the letter, Cashman asks when he will be moved from the maximum security Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Cedar Junction, under the belief he will be going to a federal "Witness Protection Program Facility."

Cashman said he was unaware of such a facility until the meeting with an assistant DA, the state police and an FBI agent in September.

"I just assumed I'd be moved to a really laid back, much nicer state or federal facility where nobody would know me or my involvement with the Berkshire County case," he wrote.

He said he was hoping for somewhere "really nice" with vocational or college classes and "health and fitness" programs.

According to the state Department of Correction, Cashman remains at Cedar Junction.

Capeless' written response to the motion was that the requested material was a product of the application process for the U.S. Marshal's Witness Security Program and isn't in the custody of the Commonwealth and even if it was would be inadmissible at trial.

Cashman also told investigators that Chalue gave him a copy of the discovery materials in the case and that he read the files, which a guard at the Souza-Baranowski Corr-
ectional Center gave him when he and Chalue were both in the segregation unit there. Chalue alleged he never gave Cash-
man, or anyone else, permission to look at the files.

Frank asked the court to give him access to the names of all the correctional officers at the facility and any other documents that related to the alleged incident.

Chalue's attorney requested the court to dismiss the indictments or suppress anything found in three searches of Chalue's cell at Souza-Baranowski, the latest being on Feb. 24 of this year.

The attorney said his client's civil rights were violated when police investigators went through, and on some occasions confiscated material, that were protected by attorney-client privilege, including paperwork of trial strategy.

According to an affidavit by Chalue, last June he was removed from his cell and taken to another correctional center "without explanation" and afterwards police investigators went through his belongings. Chalue said during the February search he was put into segregation without explanation and was forced to again leave his case file behind.

Among the other motions filed, Frank asked that the court preclude David Casey from testifying about being alone with Hall before burying the bodies and discussing the details of the killings, including Hall telling Casey he picked up Glasser's head and commenting on it being "ugly."

The attorney said it was hearsay and shouldn't be allowed at trial.

Similarly, Frank wants the court to keep out statements Casey said Hall made to him about Chalue being in the Aryan Brotherhood and having served federal time, among other statements. The attorney said the alleged statements were highly prejudicial and irrelevant to the issues at trial.

Frank requested that any statements made by Glasser to police before his death be kept from trial.

"As Mr. Glasser is deceased and not subject to cross-examination, the testimony would be in clear violation of the defendant's rights."

The motions will be heard in Hampden Superior Court on April 11 before Judge C. Jeffrey Kinder.

The trial had already been moved from Berkshire County due to pretrial publicity.

Veiovis, 33, of Pittsfield, has been scheduled to go on trial Sept. 2. As of now it will be held in Hampden Superior Court in Springfield. He has denied the charges.

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